Gardendale First Baptist Church opened a new campus that included a 125-foot-tall steel cross overlooking Interstate 65. (The Birmingham News / Joe Songer)

The landscape of religion in the Birmingham metropolitan area changed dramatically during 2010 with megachurch expansions and a high-profile split.

Gardendale First Baptist Church opened a 145-acre, $19.7 million campus on Aug. 8 that includes a 125-foot-tall steel cross overlooking Interstate 65, a signature event for the metro area's year in religion. The church has weekly attendance of about 3,500.

Church of the Highlands, ranked one of the 100 largest churches in America, continued its breathtaking expansion with a $4 million, 1,000-seat auditorium on its Grants Mill Road campus that hosts youth services and serves as an annex for its main 2,400-seat sanctuary during Sunday services. Highlands draws more than 11,000 a week to its worship services.

The Rev. Al B. Sutton stepped down as pastor of the 5,000-member Sixth Avenue Baptist Church due to internal conflict and started Living Stones Temple, which held its first service at Temple Emanu-El and drew about 800 people.

Another megachurch pastor, the Rev. Bill Elder, founder of the 2,000-member MountainTop Church, returned to the pulpit Sept. 26 after a long recovery from a stroke suffered on Christmas Eve 2009.

Trinity Life Church fell on hard times and abandoned its $5 million megachurch campus facing Interstate 459 between McCalla and Hoover. Trinity Life founding Pastor J. Scott Moore came under increasing scrutiny for his financial dealings with HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy, who owes HealthSouth Corp. a $2.8 billion civil judgment. Another megachurch, Worship Center Christian Church in Huffman, stepped in to buy the facility and hopes to turn it into a Bessemer branch campus led by Pastor Vanable H. Moody II. Moody said construction is under way and the congregation hopes to move in by Easter.

Bestselling atheist writer Christopher Hitchens returned to Birmingham for another debate on God and the merits of atheism. Hitchens faced off with writer David Berlinski at the Sheraton Hotel downtown in front of 1,200 people. It was a rare public appearance for Hitchens after his diagnosis with throat cancer.

The deadly magnitude 8.5 earthquake in Haiti on Jan. 12 left an estimated 250,000 dead and drew a massive humanitarian response from area churches. The Episcopal Diocese of Alabama, which has a partnership with the Diocese of Haiti, sent six mission teams during the year.

The Rev. Mike Shaw, pastor of First Baptist Church of Pelham, was elected president of the Alabama Baptist Convention. Shaw and his church were among the organizers of the Awakening crusades at the Verizon Wireless Center that drew several thousand to events in October and November.

Birmingham-Southern College, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, endured turmoil and transition in 2010. Trustees accepted the resignation of President David Pollick after a monthslong controversy over accounting errors and overspending that helped put the elite liberal arts school in deep financial trouble. The trustees then named Provost Mark Schantz as interim president.

Mother Angelica, 87, who founded EWTN Global Catholic Network in 1981 and lives at Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, was honored in her hometown of Canton, Ohio, with a street named after her. Mother Angelica stopped doing live TV appearances after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage on Christmas Eve in 2001.

The Christian nonprofit formerly known as King's Ranch and Hannah Homes changed its name to King's Home. King's Ranch and Hannah Homes, which house about 160 abused women, children and youth, had merged their services in 1998 but kept their names.

Pilgrim Church, which was formerly located on Montclair Road in what was popularly known as the "Blue Roof Church," got a new home and a new pastor. The congregation moved into a renovated former office building at 2817 Sixth Ave. South in the Lakeview district and hired the Rev. Janet Boyd Weidler as pastor.